Posts by Tim

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@ Jimbo

What processor is that box running? I happen to have a spare pc with a 1.4ghz athlon & a bag full of ram (literally) - is it worth a try on Win7 or would I be wasting my time? Presumably the freebie trial version of Win7 is still available from MS.

Today's handy tip

If you're unhappy with the light from your CFL bulbs and they are more than a couple of years old, lob them in the bin and buy some new ones. I have tried this (I actually had some unused ones left over from 2 years back) and was very impressed by the improvement. To make this approach environmentally sound, use a bin woven from organic stuff.

Alternatively, buy a stock of those nice 100 watt incandescent bulbs whicle you can still track them down.

Sad end

It's a shame to see these place names disappear, their continuing existence provides the odd smutty smirk to many. Some such enthusiasts will no doubt be pleased to hear that Slut's Hole Lane, Besthorpe, is still surviving.

New role for him...

Following extensive research, I have determined that Galway City is not on Google Street (innit) View yet. No doubt this guy will be applying for a job as the driver for the camera car, to record his own personal grumbleflick of the area's urban delights. At least we'll all then be able to see what the excitement is about.

@ teecee

I haven't read that, but am impressed to hear of a fission ramjet- there was some hyper crazy US project to power a kind of gigantic cruise missile with those back in the 60s. It got cancelled for some reason, lucky for us.

Presumably this is for taxes

Currently the govt takes a lot of income from fuel taxes. If people move to leccy cars they will lose this income. So we need to have smart meters so that that "transport electricity" can be charged (no pun intended) with it's own special tax band.

Fines for Google?

Interesting that it should be in Greece this is happening. When their Vodafone network was hacked about 4 years ago, to intercept about 100 senior politicians phones (Google for Kostas Tsalikidis for info), their privacy regulator fined Vodafone £75m for allowing this, and their telecoms regulator fined them too. On this basis, their privacy regulator certainly has got teeth.

Magnificent!

Thsi tech sounds great, at last it would mean being able to look at the web on a phone without having to put up with a squitty little screen. Would also be awesome for videocalls/videoconferencing over a mobile.

As Wolf points out it's the input device that needs attention now; but suspect that voice is the likely best way forward with site interfaces using it in the same way some companies' phone systems voice-operated IVRs do, they seem to work pretty well.

@ christoph

eh? ok, the ID cards n the fingerprinting would be alright, but the drugs test kit would be flooded with booze n coke alarms, and as for putting lie detectors in there , that would be buzzing so loud people would complain in Birmingham.

Excellent!

Reminds me of that pic from a year or so back with someone (in drag?) being stretchered away from a nightclub while two people in rabbit costumes look on. Anyone got a link for that? Or maybe my medication was particularly special at that time...

A new 1%er

So, this generates 1% more thrust than it needs. Er, and they expect people to fly in it?

Anyway, how much is jet engine performance affected by atmospheric conditions such as altitude, air temp and humiidity? If you only have 1% spare in test conditions, how much will you have spare in the tropics?

Therefore...

UK CO2 emissions now are way lower than when we we burnt lots of coal in the 1950s, so I guess he's right that the volume of sulphur must be much lower too; it seems we have traded acid rain for a bit of global warming.

Admittedly I thought water vapour instead of CO2 was being blamed for GW nowdays anyway, tis hard to keep up nowdays. Anyone know what's the current probability that (a) GW is actually happening and (b) GW is man made, and what is the trend for the probabilities?

@ Warren

I suspect Playmobil pron is very illegal nowdays, it being a particularly orrible perversion. Anyway, there is a precedent that the Playmobil characters watch normal, er, vanilla flavoured, grumbleflicks.... check out the Hans Beck tribute here: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/06/hans_beck_tribute/page3.html

Congrats to El Reg for the excellent coverage, tho I'm concerned about the missing Somali pirates. I hope they weren't hiding under that hat.

Not too bad a try

... but was never a possibility, as it would mean that they would have to show all the many demonstrations which go totally unmentioned in the press and on TV.

Years back I left a "management circular" that I had created on a colleague's desk, about the new charges for cycle parking at work. He was absolutely steaming livid at the proposal, ranting and swearing and banging piles of stuff down. Probably still hates me for it. Hehe.

Hmmmmm

Based on my email addys, I feel the level has only reached maybe 25% of pre-McColo levels, presumably this indicates the spammers are using different mailing address lists; implies it may be different spammers.

I couldn't see any indication of the source of the spam now in the article, but are we going to have to wait for the Washington Post to publish another identifying article before the US webhosts will take this lot down?

@ Alan etc

I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if that was true. The CCTV industry is one huge racket, they charge extraordinary amounts for equipment & licences which are nothing special whatsoever. On one contract I worked the camera company (who were already charging us extortionately for the cameras) insisted we used their licenced "storage boxes" at over £3k each; opening up their branded casing revealed a 200GB 3.5"HDD. We had to buy one for each of 20+ offices, that's a clean profit to CCTV co of over £50k.

However, it does get worse, ANPR companies charge even more than CCTV ones, they really won't get out of bed for £10k.

@ Misleading by,,,

Hmmm

Personally, I've been very disappointed that Street View is not living up to it's name at all, I was expecting something much more wicked and maxxxed. Innit.

However, there's something ironic that the, er, saluting, gentleman in the final pic is making such a greeting of friendship to the Googlecar while he is standing next to the base of a large CCTV post.

On a different note, has anyone managed to find an image of a policeman anywhere on Street View?

@ Sarah

My hat off to you, as a clear connoisseur of the grumbleflick art-form. However, further research may reveal the odd occasion where such Transsexuals are not so passive, however you may find it makes your eyes hurt to watch it.

@ AC 13:42

UK costs

Interesting that they give the dollar costs there in this press release- I would like to see the figures (especially for the VMWare licences) in GBP instead, the $ figures there look way too cheap to me.

@the spectacularly long named chap....sounds like you'd be better off upgrading your LAN/ buying some new storage devices first. Aslo, people usually recommend against virtualising any app which runs high CPU too, as the VM overhead (somewhere between 10% and 25% of processing power is used to run it, though those figures are very hard to confirm) will actually reduce the available CPU.

Oh well..

Although the idea was entirely laudable, holding a race for electric vehicles may be better on a course which is neither 37 miles long nor known as the mountain, at this stage of their evolution. My local cycle club holds its races on public roads (nice flat ones) and that would be a far more suitable place to get the technology out there & known amongst people. It would also encourage teams from local schools and individuals to have a go themselves, whereas a famously testing course in a fairly inaccessible location is probably the finest deterrent going.

So, how do I get Bernie E to sponsor the UK Electric Bike Road GP series?

Payment

So, where does this 70% figure fit in?

I just renewed my passport (£72, ouch) and one of the accompanying leaflets points out that the Identity & Passport Service is self funded & non profit making, receiving nothing from central Govt, and while part of my £72 is for producing the passport, part of it is for funding the global network of British Consulates.

Going back to my original question, I guess I am asking how much would (a) a passport and (b) an identity card cost me under the proposed scheme, and how much extra funding would it require from central Govt.?

Google Maps?

Reminds me...

Has anyone noticed ebay fees are going up (again) this month- there's an announcement about cheaper fees, but delving into it turns up that it is cheaper listing fees for 99p start items only, while for almost every item the final value fee has been whacked up to 10%. Yes, 10%. Plus Paypal's fee, other listing fees etc etc etc, the total cost of selling must be approaching 20% of end price now. Would be interesting to compare this to other countries' rates to see if it's just Britain that's being ripped off.

Opera

If people are that concerned, just use Opera, then right click and select "block content". Easy peasy.

Alternatively, click on all the ads but never ever buy anything from those companies. In the long run they will realise that such advertising is producing decreasing conversion rates and will give it up.

Prince2

Presumably, this is another Govt project which used their own Prince2 methodology. Is it time that this inefficient and needlessly beaurocratic methodolgy was abandoned? The rest of the world survives without it well enough.

u-turns

So, yet another (albeit welcome) u-turn by this hopeless govt.

<continue rant>

I have noticed that this has been an increasing trend over the last couple of years, with the culmination so far being last autumn's (pre-) budget statement that was merely a long list of things "the govt has decided not to introduce". Presumably this is all due to them clutching at any passing policy then throwing it aside when they have finally understood it's implications, however it does mean that they waste a huge amount of time ultimately achieving absolutely nothing. On which note, I will follow this with a list of Gordon & Alastair's top 5 achievements, feel free to add any I have overlooked.